A president and an oil baron walk into a journalist

Washington Examiner contributing writer and presidential historian Tevi Troy has just written The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry . Here's an exclusive excerpt from Chapter Two of Troy's new book about the different approaches two of the most prominent men of the beginning of the early 1900s, a president and the world’s richest industrialist, took to public relations:

In November of 1902, a fierce and dogged 6-foot-tall reporter named Ida Tarbell began running stories in McClure’s magazine about Standard Oil. The stories, which detailed Standard Oil’s — and firm founder and president John D. Rockefeller ’s — predatory tactics in building its powerful monopoly, were an immediate sensation. The stories went on for two years and helped build the circulation of McClure’s to 375,000 — the equivalent of over 1.5 million today — making Rockefeller even more hated than he already was. Tarbell’s ultimate conclusion was devastating: “Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.” Sentiment against Rockefeller was so negative that the reformist monthly The Arena wrote, “There are worse men than John D. Rockefeller. There is probably no one, however, who in the public mind so typifies the grave and startling menace to the social order.”

Tarbell’s series stung. Standard Oil knew that it would, and tried to curtail it. Tarbell discussed the article with Standard Oil’s Henry Rogers at the company’s headquarters and he asked, politely but plaintively, “Is there any way we can stop this?” Tarbell’s steely response: “No, there is no way on earth in which you can prevent the publication of this story.”

Rogers’s belated plea revealed a great oversight on Standard Oil’s part. While the company was ruthless in building itself out both vertically and horizontally, it gave little attention to the press or to managing its reputation with the public. There had been earlier warnings about bad press as a potential problem. In 1888, Standard Oil executive Paul Babcock warned Rockefeller that “this anti-trust fever is a craze, which we should meet in a very dignified way and parry every question with answers which while perfectly truthful are evasive of bottom facts.” Rockefeller was uninterested in responding to the press then, and would remain so as long as he was at the company. But his lack of interest in the press showed that he misunderstood the degree to which an increasingly powerful — and national — press could shape perceptions, and with it, government policy.

Even in the midst of the Tarbell onslaught, Rockefeller and Standard Oil remained slow to face the public relations challenge her series created. When a friend of Rockefeller offered to rebut some of Tarbell’s arguments, he stopped the friend in his tracks, saying, “Not a word! Not a word about that misguided woman.” Later, and somewhat more thoughtfully, Rockefeller noted that he had “thought once of having an answer made to the McClure articles, but you know it has always been the policy of the Standard to keep silent under attack and let our acts speak for themselves.” It was an unwise policy. Rockefeller dismissively — and ineffectually — referred to her as “Miss Tar Barrel” as her articles savaged the reputations of both him and the company he had built.

Rockefeller’s nicknaming could not change the narrative, as things beyond just government policies were changing at the time. America was no longer so clubby, so dominated by elites; the popular media was becoming more aggressive, and a populist sensibility was on the rise. While Rockefeller was practicing a self-destructive policy of unilateral disarmament, his enemies were taking advantage of the situation.

Theodore Roosevelt included Tarbell’s articles in his vast reading — he read as many as three books a day, even as president — and even sent her a fan letter about the series. This was typical of Roosevelt. He had a long history of reading social criticism, learning from it, and befriending the authors. Roosevelt’s reading and his relationships with authors could directly affect policy. He read Upton Sinclair’s harrowing novel The Jungle, which described unsafe and unsanitary conditions in the Chicago meatpacking plants. After reading the book, Roosevelt requested a report from Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson on plant conditions, which contributed to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

Roosevelt saw Sinclair and Tarbell as part of a group who would become known as “muckrakers.” The term came from Roosevelt’s April 14, 1906, speech laying a cornerstone at the House of Representatives. In the speech, Roosevelt called out the value of a “man with a muck rake,” a reference to John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. According to Roosevelt, the man with the rake “could look no way but downward.” These muckrakers could denigrate but could not get beyond their critiques to the place of real solutions. Roosevelt, however, could.

Despite their limitations, Roosevelt found the muckrakers useful in that they highlighted societal problems that Roosevelt wanted to address. The Jungle did not alert Roosevelt to the problems of the nation’s meatpacking plants. He had discussed them previously, even before Sinclair’s book came out. What Sinclair did, however, was bring additional public support, not to mention outrage, that would help Roosevelt achieve his policy goals.

Tarbell’s work was similar. Roosevelt was already skeptical of Rockefeller and his fellow industrialists. But in skewering Rockefeller, Tarbell created a political opportunity for Roosevelt. The Tarbell series was another example of Roosevelt’s smart use of his prodigious reading to develop new policy ideas and advance his political goals. Unlike Rockefeller, Roosevelt understood public relations. He would later grumble about Henry Ford’s relentless public relations efforts to develop his popular image. Rockefeller had not yet had that insight, and Roosevelt took advantage of it. Tarbell was a perfect vehicle for Roosevelt. As a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania, whose father’s business had been destroyed by Rockefeller, she took her local perspective on Rockefeller’s misdeeds and brought them to national attention. Roosevelt was determined to make use of that attention in a second term in the White House .

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Washington Examiner contributing writer Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.